Edward Spragge

Edward Spragge (1620-21 August 1673) was an Admiral of the Royal Navy of England during the Anglo-Dutch Wars.

Biography
Edward Spragge was born in 1620 in County Roscommon, Ireland, the grandson of a settler from England. Spragge's father was killed in the English Civil War, and the younger Spragge served in Prince Rupert of the Rhine's naval squadron. In 1651, following the end of the civil war, he served as a privateer for the United Provinces against Oliver Cromwell's Royal Navy in the First Anglo-Dutch War, as the English royalists sided with the Dutch against Parliament. In 1654, he also served as a privateer for Spain in the brief war with England, but he was pardoned after the English Restoration in 1660 and served in King Charles II of England's navy. In 1665, he was knighted for bravery at the Battle of Lowestoft, and he became a rival of the Dutch admiral Cornelis Tromp, and he told King Charles II that he would kill Tromp or die trying. In the Battle of Texel, Spragge died of drowning when his vessel was sunk by a Dutch cannonball, and his revenge was incomplete.